The present invention relates to a retractile pen, and more particularly to a pen including slidably connected front and rear casings, so that the pen may be shortened for storage, or extended for comfortable holding during writing.
There are a variety of retracting structures designed for pens. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,276,855 B1 discloses a retractile pen, a casing of which may be shortened to enable positioning of the pen in a small pocket, or extended to enable easy holding and comfortable writing.
It is desirable to develop a new retractile pen that may be easily operated to a retracted state for storage or an extended state for writing.
A primary object of the present invention is to provide a retractile pen that includes axially slidably connected front and rear casings, an internal sleeve slidably mounted in the rear casing to hold an ink cartridge, a front portion of which is extended into the front casing, and an adjusting button located above a guide slot provided on the rear casing to connect to the internal sleeve via a stem portion of the button extended through the guide slot. When the adjusting button is depressed, it may be moved along the guide slot to bring the internal sleeve to a rear or a front locating hole formed at rear and front end of the guide slot, respectively, so as to hold the ink cartridge in a retracted or extended position. Meanwhile, when the adjusting button is depressed, the rear casing may be pushed toward or away from the front casing to shorten or increase an overall length of the pen, respectively.
The retractile pen of the present invention further includes a clip connected to the rear casing. The clip is provided with an axially extended slide slot corresponding to the guide slot on the rear casing. The adjusting button is located at an outer side of the clip with the stem portion extended through the slide slot and the guide slot to connect with the internal sleeve. When the adjusting button is moved to the front end of the slide slot to hold the internal sleeve in place and the ink cartridge in the extended position, the stem portion stops the clip from opening to clamp the pen to a pocket, protecting the pocket from being smudged by an exposed writing tip of the ink cartridge.
The adjusting button may have a selected size and shape to enable convenient operation by a user, and specific patterns may be printed on a top of the adjusting button as an advertisement.